Storm in a Teacup: The Life of a Nineteenth-Century New Zealand Settler Told through Her Tea Ware

Abstract

Tea ware has been the focus of numerous North American and Australian historical archaeology studies of female consumer behavior in colonial contexts. This article uses data from a 19th-century urban site in Whanganui, New Zealand, to examine how these previously explored experiences of self-expression and social pressure compare to those of a woman from another part of the colonial world. To do this, the ways in which three aspects of Mary Byrne’s tea-ware assemblage changed over time were examined and considered alongside events that occurred during her 40-year occupation of the site. The results highlight the varied and complex ways in which a first-generation settler in New Zealand used material culture to negotiate a place in her new community.